{"id":930,"date":"2021-08-12T08:35:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T12:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=930"},"modified":"2021-08-12T08:35:33","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T12:35:33","slug":"its-supposed-to-be-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/12\/its-supposed-to-be-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Supposed to Be Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no crying in baseball!\u201d<\/em>

That\u2019s the most frequently quoted line from A League of Their Own<\/em>, the 1992 feature film about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which opened the door for women to play pro ball when World War II sent numerous MLB players into combat.

But the film’s most compelling conversation takes place between Dottie Hinson, the star player and catcher of the Rockford Peaches, and her coach Jimmy Dugan.

Tom Hanks plays Dugan, a former great player who has shipwrecked his life through booze.  Geena Davis plays Hinson. 

For Dottie, despite all of her athletic success, baseball is just a way to pass the time until her husband returns from the war.  Then she can do what she really wants to do: settle down and raise a family.  As soon as Bob appears, walking with a cane, she empties her locker and prepares to leave.  Dugan confronts her:

Jimmy<\/em>:  Taking a little day trip?
Dottie<\/em>:  No, Bob and I are driving home.  To Oregon.
Jimmy<\/em>:  [long pause] You know, I really thought you were a ballplayer.
Dottie<\/em>:  Well, you were wrong.
Jimmy<\/em>:  Was I?
Dottie<\/em>:  Yeah.  It is only a game, Jimmy.  It\u2019s only a game, and, and, I don\u2019t need this.  I have Bob.  I don\u2019t need this.  At all.
Jimmy<\/em>:  I gave away five years at the end of my career, drinking.  Five years.  And now there isn\u2019t anything I wouldn\u2019t give to get back any one day of it.
Dottie<\/em>:  Well, we\u2019re different.
Jimmy:<\/em>  If you want to go back to Oregon and make a hundred babies, great.  I\u2019m in no position to tell anyone how to live.  But sneaking out like this, quitting, you\u2019ll regret it for the rest of your life.  Baseball is what gets inside you.  It\u2019s what lights you up, you can\u2019t deny that.
Dottie<\/em>:  It just got hard.
Jimmy<\/em>:  It\u2019s supposed to be hard.  If it wasn\u2019t hard, everyone would do it.  The hard\u2026is what makes it great.

Since everything seemed so rosy on the day you were married, why is it so hard to stay married to someone who turned out to be so cranky?  Since parenting was supposed to be this joyful adventure, why is it so hard to juggle two toddlers, a broken dishwasher, and a never-ending pile of laundry?  Since following Jesus was supposed to fill you with \u201cpeace that passes understanding,\u201d why is it so hard when Jesus keeps coming back to that part about carrying your cross every day? 

It\u2019s supposed to be hard.  <\/em>Pursuing things that matter will always be costly. 

Are there easy-to-find shortcuts through life\u2019s most vexing problems?  Is it possible to be deeply happy even if we invest only a fraction of our energy pursuing who we know we\u2019re called to be? 

Don\u2019t believe it.  

It\u2019s hard being a great friend.  It\u2019s hard being a person of integrity.  It\u2019s hard being a faithful disciple.

It\u2019s supposed to be hard. 

And the hard is what makes it great<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere\u2019s no crying in baseball!\u201d That\u2019s the most frequently quoted line from A League of Their Own, the 1992 feature film about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which opened the door for women to play pro ball when World War II sent numerous MLB players into combat. But the film’s most compelling conversation takes place between Dottie Hinson, the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-perseverance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":932,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}